What’s Really Holding Back Food & Beverage Hiring in 2026

January 19, 2026 in Food & Beverage Industry Information, HR Best Practices

 

Laurie Hyllberg

Laurie champions Kinsa Group’s position as the top food and beverage recruiting firm in the nation and its presence in the global FMCG marketplace. To her Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Business Management, and Marketing she adds over 20 years of executive search experience in the food and beverage industry at Kinsa. Building a network of executives and professionals through membership in the Women’s Foodservice Forum, Institute of Food Technologists, FaB Wisconsin, Chicagoland Food and Beverage Network, and maintaining professional expertise in recruiting as an Executive Board Member for the Recruiters Of Wisconsin association, Laurie is able to connect top talent in the food industry with food and beverage processors and foodservice providers growing their teams at the C-Suite, VP, Director, and Management level. Connect with Laurie today!

 

The food and beverage industry is facing one of its most challenging hiring environments in recent memory. Labor shortages persist across hands-on and leadership roles in operations, quality, and food science. Good manufacturing processes require continuous improvement. Having a strong cross-functional team in place that can successfully navigate plant audits is critical. Yet despite active recruiting efforts, critical positions stay open for months, sometimes requiring multiple interview attempts before a hire is made.

The issue isn’t a lack of talent. Experienced quality directors, supply chain leaders, plant leaders, and operations executives are in the market. The problem is misalignment. Employers and candidates are approaching the same roles with fundamentally different expectations about scope, authority, compensation, and operational reality.

When those expectations don’t align from the start, hiring stalls, offers fall through, and the cycle repeats. For food and beverage organizations, closing this expectation gap isn’t just about filling positions faster. It’s about making smarter hiring decisions that lead to long-term retention and operational stability.

Where Employer Expectations Break Down in Food & Beverage Hiring

Many hiring challenges in this industry stem from how roles are defined, or more accurately, how they evolve during the search process. Common patterns include:

  • Overloading a single role with incompatible responsibilities. A plant manager position that requires deep operational expertise, advanced regulatory knowledge, cost engineering capabilities, and transformational people leadership isn’t hard to fill because the talent doesn’t exist – it’s hard to fill because the role expects one person to do the work of three.
  • Misalignment among internal stakeholders. Operations wants a quality director who won’t slow down production. Corporate wants someone who can modernize compliance programs. Finance wants cost reduction. When these priorities aren’t reconciled before the search begins, the role description becomes a moving target that confuses candidates and delays decisions.
  • Extended approval processes that don’t match market pace. Multi-layered decision structures, requiring sign-off from site leadership, regional management, and corporate HR, can stretch hiring timelines well beyond what strong candidates will tolerate, especially for job candidates that expect to make decisions that impact operations in a timely manner once they join the organization.
  • Compensation structures that don’t reflect role complexity. Offering a salary band designed for steady-state management while expecting turnaround leadership, significant growth, or organizational restructuring creates an immediate credibility gap with experienced candidates.

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These aren’t abstract hiring mistakes. They’re structural misalignments that directly impact whether qualified candidates remain engaged through the process.

What Food & Beverage Candidates Expect Today

Experienced food and beverage professionals understand the realities of the job market. They know the demands of production schedules, the pressure of workplace audits, and the complexity of managing decentralized teams. What they expect in return is transparency and clarity.

Candidates evaluating roles today are looking for:

  • Honest communication about facility conditions and operational challenges. Whether it’s aging equipment, upcoming capital projects, or workforce stability issues, job candidates would rather know upfront than discover problems after they’ve accepted an offer.
  • Clear definition of decision-making authority. A quality manager needs to know whether they’ll have the autonomy to stop a line or implement process changes – or whether every decision requires escalation. Ambiguity around authority is a red flag.
  • Respect for their time and commitments. On-site roles often require relocation or significant lifestyle adjustments. Candidates expect interview processes that are efficient, well-coordinated, and designed to assess fit – not endless rounds of redundant conversations.
  • Confidence in leadership direction and company stability. Strong candidates are assessing whether the organization has a clear strategy, whether leadership is aligned, and whether the company is positioned for growth or navigating decline.

These expectations aren’t unreasonable. They reflect the professional standards of candidates who have undergone numerous hiring processes, enabling them to recognize when an organization is prepared to hire and when one isn’t.

The Business Impact of Misaligned Expectations

When employer and candidate expectations don’t align, the consequences extend far beyond a delayed hire. Organizations face:

  • Prolonged vacancies in roles critical to production continuity. A company without a quality director for six months isn’t just managing a staffing gap—it’s operating with elevated food safety risk and increased vulnerability during regulatory and quality audits.
  • Restarted searches after offers are declined or early exits occur. When a candidate accepts an offer based on one understanding of the role and arrives to find something entirely different, the result is often a quick departure and a search that starts over from scratch.
  • Increased pressure on existing leadership teams. When key roles remain unfilled, the burden falls on remaining leaders who are already managing full workloads. This accelerates burnout and increases the risk of additional departures.
  • Operational and reputational risk. Gaps in quality oversight, food safety leadership, or production management can create exposure, leading to regulatory findings, customer dissatisfaction, or production interruptions.

These aren’t minor inconveniences. They’re business-critical risks that impact both short-term performance and long-term operational health.

Aligning Expectations to Improve Hiring Outcomes

Closing the expectation gap requires deliberate effort before the search begins. Organizations that consistently make strong hires take these steps:

  • Distinguish between non-negotiable requirements and trainable competencies. A quality manager needs regulatory expertise, food safety knowledge, and audit experience. They don’t necessarily need familiarity with your specific ERP system or prior experience in your exact product category. Clarity here widens the candidate pool without compromising standards.
  • Achieve internal alignment before engaging the market. If operations, finance, and HR have different priorities for a role, resolve those differences internally. A unified understanding of what the role requires, and what it doesn’t, prevents mid-search pivots that derail momentum.
  • Lead with transparency about challenges, not an idealized version of the role. Candidates appreciate honesty about what they’re walking into. A plant undergoing modernization or a facility with workforce challenges isn’t a dealbreaker, but discovering those realities late in the process often is.
  • Move decisively once alignment is clear. When the right candidate emerges, organizations that can move quickly through interviews and extend offers, rather than waiting for additional job applicants or candidates to compare them to, are far more likely to secure top talent.

This Is Where Kinsa Group Adds Value

Kinsa Group works exclusively in food and beverage recruiting and we understand what’s required to succeed in operational, technical, and business development roles. We know the difference between a plant manager who can optimize an efficient operation and one who can stabilize a struggling facility. Our team understands what skills key account managers need to navigate new business development and house account penetration. We recognize when proposed compensation structures will attract the right candidates, and when they won’t.

Our role isn’t to present as many resumes as possible. It’s to help clients define what they actually need, align internal expectations with market realities, and engage candidates who are genuinely suited for the role as it exists.

We bring clarity to searches that have stalled, help organizations understand why strong candidates are declining offers, and ensure that the hiring process reflects the professionalism candidates expect from industry-leading employers.

If your organization is struggling to fill critical food and beverage roles despite strong interest, it may be time to reassess. Kinsa Group partners with food and beverage leaders to bring clarity, alignment, and momentum to the hiring process. Reach out today!

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